Chapter 22

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter Title: Chapter 1. The Male Lead is the Villain (1)

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"Look at me."

A firm hand grasped her chin and lifted it.

The fingers then slid down, gently stroking her cheek.

It was a touch so careful, as if handling something precious, utterly out of place in this situation. Just like old times.

It felt like staring at a screen with a glitch in the code.

A gentle touch in the midst of being kidnapped?

But no matter how kindly the man before her acted, it didn't change the fact that his eyes were wild, or that she had been abducted by him and locked in some unknown bedroom.

'What the hell is wrong with this guy's eyes? How is this the look of a happy groom?'

Even if she couldn't imagine him harming her.

Who knew when that might become reality?

"You even have time to space out."

The fingertips on her cheek slipped to her earlobe, pinching the soft flesh just hard enough to make Edelaine swallow a scream and glare at him.

"Don't touch me."

"Finally looking at me properly."

"How could I not, when you're the bastard who kidnapped me?"

"Still got that foul mouth."

Despite her accusation, Shane calmly toyed with her soft earlobe. Edelaine bit the inside of her cheek to keep from losing herself in the sensation.

It would have been better if he'd bruised her painfully.

"You never spared me a glance when we were engaged."

"...Shane, this isn't funny at all, so stop. You're not like this. Everyone knows you're not the type to say I can't leave or whatever. If you're angry, I'll listen..."

"You think you know everything?"

Shane finally released her earlobe.

Edelaine quickly scanned him as he rose from where he'd been sitting in front of her. He wore a casual shirt, light attire.

'Judging by his clothes, his residence... or at least a villa where he stays for days. The casual outfit suggests he frequents it.'

His thick, long arms, broad shoulders, and body packed with seamless muscle looked solid, but he didn't appear armed.

The room was lit by a single candle, windowless and dim. She couldn't gauge how much time had passed.

'Can I escape?'

She eyed the door beyond Shane's shoulder. It was firmly shut. More than that, pushing him aside and running seemed impossible.

Noticing her anxiously biting her lip, Shane's chuckle rained down from above her head. Edelaine glared at him, a surge of resentment rising.

Was he mocking her now? This Shane Blancard?

The endlessly gentle man who had doted on his willful young fiancée, begging her to tell him if he'd done wrong—the good male lead?

Shane spoke.

"Edelaine, you don't know me at all."

"Why wouldn't I know you?"

She knew his name, status, face, personality.

They'd been engaged since childhood and grown close.

Even without that, Edelaine knew Shane as a character.

She'd known him before she was even born. Her current self knew everything about his experiences, past, and future that she shouldn't.

If that wasn't knowing someone, no one in the world could claim to know another.

"You've always been like that. Never looking at me, never trying to know me, yet acting like you knew everything."

"..."

"There were times it made me happy, surely."

Shane leaned in as if to kiss her. Edelaine couldn't hold back and shrieked sharply.

"Don't!"

"..."

"You're married! Don't do this!"

"...Well, no one would blame me."

"Shane Blancard, don't act like trash. It doesn't suit you."

"You're the one blaming me? Calling my name like you're scolding a child?"

Shane sneered.

"You, who spent our entire engagement urging me to cheat?"

"That was—"

Edelaine faltered before his blatant mockery. She couldn't comprehend the resentment and accusation seeping through his laughter.

The male lead Shane had gained popularity for his unwavering devotion to the female lead, Genevieve.

Like any male lead, he never wavered for any beauty's temptation, loving only her.

So naturally, telling him he didn't need to mind her should have been a relief. He was a good man; she wanted to ease his heart.

"That was just... advice to embrace true love honestly. And is an engagement the same as marriage?"

"Still so good with words."

Shane smiled faintly and pressed his lips to her round forehead.

This time, he gripped her chin firmly to prevent her from dodging. The sensation of his lips touching and leaving her forehead made her want to scream.

"I'm glad you haven't changed at all, Edelaine."

His lips brushed her eye next, then pulled away.

Edelaine spat coldly.

"You seem like a different person."

"Really? I feel the same. If I seem different, it just means you're finally seeing me properly. I'm glad, Edelaine."

"..."

Shane gazed at her fondly. Even as she glared daggers, he didn't flinch.

His eyes didn't look sane at all.

'Who is this guy?'

He felt like a total stranger. Not the novel's male lead, not her childhood friend and former fiancé. She didn't know this man.

"Kidnapping someone and locking them up, and that's enough to make you happy? Good for you. Satisfied now?"

"..."

"Are you satisfied?!"

"As if I'd be satisfied with this much. We're far from done, Edelaine."

"Shane Blancard."

She called his name softly, and he met her eyes squarely. Holding his gaze, Edelaine said slowly.

"Don't do anything you'll regret."

She had no way to make him regret it or even escape, but whatever. Since reincarnating, over half her life had been bluffing.

"Regret?"

Shane suddenly burst into laughter.

"I've already regretted enough to die. Since the day you died."

"So this is your revenge? For fooling you? Sorry you thought I was dead and I'm alive? Should I apologize for deceiving you? Yeah, I'm really sorry, but I had no choice—"

The smile vanished from Shane's face in an instant. Edelaine stopped mid-sentence without realizing.

"You're still so vivid in my mind, dying right in front of me."

"..."

"Yeah, you're alive..."

Shane gritted his teeth. Then he froze, pale and unmoving.

As if suddenly faced with a gaping wound and helpless.

'I messed up...'

Facing his wax-doll face, reason crept back in. Edelaine remembered she was locked in a room with this madman.

And the man before her was a stranger, not her ex-fiancé or childhood friend.

'I did trick him, maybe I should just grovel.'

A卑微 urge flickered.

Madmen were scary because you couldn't predict what they'd do.

But Shane just stared at her silently with calm, quiet eyes, saying nothing.

Then he abruptly stood. Edelaine cried out unwittingly.

"Wait, Shane!"

He paused just before opening the door and turned back.

His clear blue eyes, once admired as sapphires, were now shadowed with gloom. The smiling, gentle ex-fiancé had become a different person in just five years.

"Don't even think about running. Unless you want to see how far my reach extends."

"..."

With that, Shane left the room.

Left alone, it took Edelaine a moment to exhale shakily. Her taut body relaxed. She hadn't realized how tense she'd been.

The bed was so plush it swallowed her, incredibly comfortable, but she had no leisure to enjoy it. The dark room mirrored her situation perfectly.

'What the hell is all this?'

What was this shitty situation? How did things end up like this?

If Shane had been the male lead she knew, she wouldn't have been scared no matter the circumstances.

But this man was a complete unknown to her.

She wanted to believe Shane wouldn't do this... but those eyes made it believable that the novel's male lead had poisoned Edelaine.

'I have no idea where it went wrong...'

She returned after five years to a happy ending, yet the male lead was kidnapping people and acting like an adulterer-in-training...

The obituary that fooled her meant it was fake.

'Yeah, that's a relief.'

No better news than her mother being alive. Edelaine, who had devoted her life to hiding, couldn't ignore or doubt her mother's death notice.

Shane must have guessed at her guilt toward her family. That's why he chose it—a means she couldn't ignore.

'Where does the truth end and the lies begin?'

She couldn't trust anything.

Did the Saintess really have a happy marriage?

'Is she really happy married to that lunatic?'

A fundamental doubt arose.

The novel's point was the heroine Genevieve loved and healed, purifying the world. She had to be happy.

But a husband with crazy eyes kidnapping and imprisoning his ex-fiancée? That was far from happy.

At least, nothing like this appeared in the novel she read.

'I avoided the romance-fantasy villainess bad end, only for kidnapping and imprisonment to await...'

And the culprit was the male lead.

Was it wrong to firmly believe the male lead couldn't be the villain?

'No, he was really kind when we were kids?'

Kind... was he?

Edelaine carefully sifted through her memories.

Yes, from the very beginning.